In his February 6 editorial, Frank Gillispie asserts that the “climate change argument is just liberals wanting to tax us.”

Whether climate change is real is not a political issue. It is a scientific issue, and scientists regard it as settled. Those who are not working scientists, and say it is a political issue, are doing the world a great harm. I am a scientist who has regularly attended international scientific meetings, and it is now 20 years since the last time I met a scientist who was not seriously concerned about the effect humans are having on the weather.

Gillispie is right that there are natural cycles of weather change. However, all of them should be causing the earth to cool, and the earth is warming. No one seriously claims it’s not. The question is whether humans are the cause. (There is a dramatic animation of the actual temperature data at the start of the article on climate change found on NoSlogans.org.)

There is one piece of evidence that is particularly easy to understand. First, recall that ultraviolet light from the sun passes through the earth’s atmosphere and warms the surface of the earth. Infra red light then leaves the surface, but unlike ultraviolet light, it is absorbed by carbon dioxide or methane in the atmosphere. Rather than passing through the atmosphere, infrared light warms it.

And here is the point: While the surface of the earth is warming because “greenhouse” gasses are absorbing infrared light near the surface, the upper atmosphere is cooling because infrared light from the earth does not reach it.

No increase in light from the sun, no change in the earth’s orbit or inclination toward the sun, no increase in the heat generated in the earth’s core, nothing would cause the lower atmosphere to heat while the upper atmosphere cools other than an increase in “greenhouse” gasses.

No scientist ever expected that overall warming of the planet would cause uniform warming everywhere. Think of the warming as causing more churning of the atmosphere. That churning will sometimes drive Arctic air down over Georgia. That is what is happening as I write this letter.

Gillispie is right that there have been times in the distant past when the earth has been much warmer, and the oceans have poured over our coast lines. Those are known to have been times when natural processes released carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Today, it is not nature that is pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; it is us; and the climate is changing faster than it has ever changed in the history of the earth.

As well as propaganda proposed above is the enemy as well. Any theory that cannot pass the scientific standard as the Climate Change Religion cannot is simply propaganda. Any theory that is "beyond debate" is simply propaganda.
But since we still live in "somewhat" of a capitalistic society, you guys can continue to line the pockets of Al Gore and other ruling elites and absorb their global warming magic.

Thank you, Mr. Vogel. I wish more people with thoughtful commentary would post on this site.

".... the climate is changing faster than it has ever changed in the history of the earth."

This is the central point of global warming and our current climate change. In addition to the resulting extreme weather events, the short time period of change prevents both plant and animal species from adapting generation to generation, especially among those animals that reproduce slowly and non-prolifically, like polar bears, whales and panda bears. Mice, rats, rabbits and roaches will adapt as each generation is rapid with enough individuals that some will have the capacity and genetic make up to survive the new environments. Not so for animals that produce only one or two offspring every year or two. They are already doomed since turning this around will take centuries.

I don't see anything in this letter which supports the assertion that skeptics do [the] world great harm. Has it inadvertently been mistitled?

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